Salvador Dali & Igor Wakhevitch – Être Dieu (Brunswick, 1974/1989)

This is no conceptual, pranksome shenanigan but a serious, pharaonic musical coup de maitre charged with a cornucopia of progressive ideas and practices respecting sound architecture and theatrical composition. One of the most adventurous, defiant, dynamic, ethereal, ghastly, religious music I’ve ever heard. Think of Ghédalia Tazartès deeply bedded in the tradition of european avant-classical music. I believe I went through the multidimensional poundings of Varèse, Xenakis glissandi, VIP-seat operatic grace and purity, the sublime mystique of near-heretical chants, the stream-of-consciousness eloquence of french dissidents, early-electronics burblings, Hadesian drones, a horde of crazy people (including Ghédalia Tazartès) and deranged sounds, all manner of inclement weathers, and most shockingly, proggy guitar licks that stretch long enough to form a psychedelic rock number reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats. That was my word.

(initialy written in 1927 but recorded in 1974). This is an obsessional, decadent, surrealist, provocative, grotesque, mystical, erotic musical comedy with Salvador Dali narratives, improvisations (in French). The music perfectly serves Dali and others actors’ voices with a medley of strange synthesiser loops, creepy lysergic ambiences, expressionist string orchestra arrengements, percussive abstractions. This is clearly a visual work for the ears and gorgeously impregnated of mental pictures and dreamlike suggestions. An intriguing, ambitious audiovisual exhibition that remains really avant gardist with many ideas and a different atmosphere for each scene. Not a progressive rock classic but a historical phenomenon with a rather unique eccentric abstract musical painting.